Article

2012-06-14 Britain

Get a job, Iain Duncan Smith tells parents on the dole

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Posted by lotp 2012-06-14 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11127 views ] Top

#1 "For those who are able to work, work has to be seen as the best route out of poverty. For work is not just about more money -- it is transformative. It's about taking responsibility for yourself and your family."

Personal responsibility, social weaning, working for money.... all very controversial.

Posted by Besoeker 2012-06-14 04:23|| 2012-06-14 04:23|| Front Page Top

#2 The trouble is that your can be taxed at > 100% of any income you earn!

Benefits system was setup as a trap to keep people relying on the state and thus voting Labour.

Until you reform that and that means ending means testing you wont get anywhere. The whole scheme's turned into a failure reward system.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-06-14 05:57|| 2012-06-14 05:57|| Front Page Top

#3 A quick calculation on my restaurant napkin:
37 hr week on Minimum Wage = approximately £840 pcm after tax and NI.
Money out on that = £820, (conservative figures of £500 rent, £120 Council Tax, £80 travel to work, £120 essential bills), leaving £20 pcm for everything else. Baked potatos breakfast, lunch and dinner!
Dole money = approximately £256 pcm, rent paid, Council Tax paid, no travel to work costs, that leaves £136 pcm after bills. Maybe some canned tomatoes with the baked tatties.

Why attack the unemployed and further reduce their means, when the real problem is slave labour and poverty anyway under an unrealistic Minimum Wage designed to make the rich richer.

Rant off, lunch time, off to forage for some nuts and berries

Posted by Deadeye Sproing4297 2012-06-14 07:51|| 2012-06-14 07:51|| Front Page Top

#4 Oh dear, not an idiot who believes the minimum wage raises wages! It only creates unemployment. Think of it as compulsory unemployment level. i.e. If you add less value than 120%* of the "minimum wage" per hour, you're not allowed to be employed.

*20% Cost of employment overhead, management costs, Employer NI.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-06-14 08:10|| 2012-06-14 08:10|| Front Page Top

#5 I'll wear my idiot badge alongside my other medal if that's the case.
Interesting factoids you state there. Taxed @ more than 100% of earnings, examples please. The benefits system as a Labour ploy? Don't. You don't think the Tory lack of taxing the rich isn't a ploy in the same style? Goose and gander, boyo. As for means testing, I would have thought that was better for your line of thinking or rather no benefit system at all, which was actually originally a safety net to end the appalling poverty in your land.

Now, rather than resorting to name calling, perhaps you can leave your Dark Side and address my point that it is not worth getting out of bed for a job that pays not even £20 pm compared to benefits. And don't tell me the unemployed are workshy, or that they should all become Engineers off their own backs. Your system is stupid, you are, in fact, stupid and are inviting a whole lot more trouble on your once green and pleasant land with your self-righteous, selfish veiws.

I would advise cutting back on the double G&Ts with your lunch, you may not be enjoying them much longer, and they do not encourage coherency or civility.

Posted by Deadeye Sproing4297 2012-06-14 11:25|| 2012-06-14 11:25|| Front Page Top

#6 Nice to see our cousin taking the Spion Kop high ground. "Civility" and all that.

Posted by Besoeker 2012-06-14 11:38|| 2012-06-14 11:38|| Front Page Top

#7 'tis the "civility" that comes with supreme arrogance. If they can give it, let's see if they can take it.

Posted by Deadeye Sproing4297 2012-06-14 12:11|| 2012-06-14 12:11|| Front Page Top

#8 Deadeye seems to think that wealth and jobs are a fixed pie, so that the only question is who gets how large a slice.

In reality, wealth can be grown for the entire society if capital is well invested and if it is enhanced not only with natural resources but also with human intellectual value. The latter can be as modest as the pleasant demeanor and organization of a receptionist or as broad as a major technology invention.

BrightPebbles is right to say that the minimum wage limits the number of employed. The question from my perspective is whether a given level of minimum wage does so to the degree that it overshadows some social benefit provided by the wages in the earner's pocket. In the US, applying minimum wage indiscriminately is a major reason that 70% of teenagers do not have any job this summer. That means: no spending money, but also no work experience to draw on in the future.

A high cost.

Posted by lotp 2012-06-14 12:15|| 2012-06-14 12:15|| Front Page Top

#9 And, since Deadeye is posting via Dallas, TX I suspect s/he is as familiar with the issue of teen unemployment here as I am.

Posted by lotp 2012-06-14 12:20|| 2012-06-14 12:20|| Front Page Top

#10 Oh dear, not an idiot who believes the minimum wage raises wages! It only creates unemployment.

No. It causes inflation as well as unemployment. Every time the minimum wage rises, so does inflation. Think about it: if nobody can afford an item, whoever is selling the item will be forced to lower the price. But if the minimum wage is increased so that people can afford the item, whoever is selling it will keep the price the same or even raise it.

The minimum wage causes unemployment by telling workers and their potential employers that they cannot legally compete against workers in other countries. Then everybody acts surprised when the jobs are shipped offshore. Then the prices for the imported goods are jacked up to whatever those on the dole and minimum wage workers can afford.

Better to cut the dole and let employers pay people what they're worth instead of letting the nanny state determine what the wages will be. The market is smarter than the nanny. It might also help to stop importing dole recipients from Third World countries.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-06-14 12:31|| 2012-06-14 12:31|| Front Page Top

#11 Deadeye Sproing4297

I'm saying the cost of employing someone is 20%+ higher than the pre tax wage they receive.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-06-14 12:50|| 2012-06-14 12:50|| Front Page Top

#12 Correct me if I'm wrong, lotp, but what you're trying to say is that people should accept dirt poor wages so that their real wage be wisely invested by some suit? So sorry to tell you, but the trust has evaporated, your assets have been exported and the cheery receptionists smile replaced by the loathing of insecurity. As for your 70% youth unemployment, well, now their parents can't even afford to give them pocket money and, unfortunately, their first language isn't Chinese.

So, yes, let your betters, hell-bent on OWG for their own benefit, degrade your children's. futures. They've really been showing how to do it so well, haven't they?

Posted by Deadeye Sproing4297 2012-06-14 13:09|| 2012-06-14 13:09|| Front Page Top

#13 So Ebang, what caused inflation and unemployment in the pre-Minimum Wage era?

Posted by Deadeye Sproing4297 2012-06-14 13:16|| 2012-06-14 13:16|| Front Page Top

#14 So, yes, let your betters, hell-bent on OWG for their own benefit, degrade your children's. futures. They've really been showing how to do it so well, haven't they?

By this, who do you mean? Labour in the UK or Democrats in the US?

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-06-14 13:18|| 2012-06-14 13:18|| Front Page Top

#15 So Ebang, what caused inflation and unemployment in the pre-Minimum Wage era?

Well, let's see...there was FDR with his socialist policies in the 1930's and then there was LBJ with his socialist policies in the 1960's.

Now, it's true that we had a correction in the stock market in 1929. There were some folks who got caught betting with borrowed money. But at least when they'd jumped out of a window we didn't have to bail them out.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-06-14 13:24|| 2012-06-14 13:24|| Front Page Top

#16 Pretty much of a muchness, whatever political stripe, EU. Power is greed these days.

Posted by Deadeye Sproing4297 2012-06-14 13:26|| 2012-06-14 13:26|| Front Page Top

#17 EU, yep, and you forgot the '70's oil crisis which caused a lot of pain. However, I will leave you with the thought that these crises are man-made and occur at predictable intervals for the benefit of very few.

I, for one, am not sucking it up.

Posted by Deadeye Sproing4297 2012-06-14 13:34|| 2012-06-14 13:34|| Front Page Top

#18 I don't care what you suck or what you don't suck. Just don't ask me to pay for your food stamps.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-06-14 13:40|| 2012-06-14 13:40|| Front Page Top

#19 Hey, Ebbang, your civility is diminished by your graciousness. Take that as a compliment.

Posted by Deadeye Sproing4297 2012-06-14 13:52|| 2012-06-14 13:52|| Front Page Top

#20 If I remember right, apologies no time for searching, the San Fran Bay area has a local minimum wage of $13, don't quote me, my point is that a popular sandwich place could no longer sell its foot longs for $5 on account of wage costs. I'm sure one of their options was cutting staff therefore working the remainder harder...if layoffs are still legal thereabouts.

I also know that peoples' givashits can rust and break when they find that not working is just the same, only they don't have to go to work. Once anectdote is a fellow whose idea of working is to have a couple cold ones then go into an interview. Auto failure, except for the proof of still looking for work.

Posted by swksvolFF 2012-06-14 14:12|| 2012-06-14 14:12|| Front Page Top

#21 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18413043

BBC doing it's best to obscure.

"The minimum wage in Nunavut is the highest in the country at $11 an hour, but high living costs mean it doesn't have the same purchasing power. And the unemployment rate is high, at 16%."

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-06-14 14:17|| 2012-06-14 14:17|| Front Page Top

#22 Well only an idiot would be looking for a minimum wage job in Nunavut. Anybody with a brain would travel a couple hours south to Ft McMurray (Alberta Oil Sands) where due to extreme labour shortages even a coffee server at Timmys gets to name his/her price.

Thats the free market.

Posted by manversgwtw 2012-06-14 16:23|| 2012-06-14 16:23|| Front Page Top

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